Lessons unlearnt: ONGC crisis in Sivasagar echoes Baghjan tragedy
As the gas leak continues, serious questions raise over ONGC's preparedness, emergency response and government's regulatory oversight.
ONGC personnel at the site of gas leak in Sivasagar (Photo: @GauravGogoiAsm / X)
The blowout from a crude oil well of energy major ONGC in Sivasagar has worsened, affecting over 1,500 people and necessitating the evacuation of 70 families to relief camps. The gravity of the situation can be gauged from the fact that people living in a large area are not in a position to light their stoves or burn anything due to the presence of highly-inflammable gas in the air.
The situation warrants constant monitoring and the affected people whose daily lives have been disrupted by the disaster need every sort of assistance to tide over the crisis. That the blowout has been emitting uninterrupted gas for the past four days with no effective intervention reflects poorly on the energy major.
The authorities have been clueless regarding checking of uncontrolled gas emission, with the well-killing process taking a long time to become operational. Such situations of extreme emergency warrant interventions to be put in place on a war footing - something conspicuous by absence till now.
It is sheer providence that the oil well has not caught fire, or such an eventuality could have triggered widespread destruction and loss of lives.
The memories of the Baghjan oil well blowout, which had ravaged a large area killing people, destroying property and severely impacting a biodiversity-rich wetland and a part of Dibru Saikhowa National Park, is still fresh in public memory. Unfortunately, even that catastrophic calamity has apparently failed to sensitise the authorities into taking prompt and effective action to deal with such disasters.
From day one, it was clear that the ONGC did not have any effective strategy to bring the situation under some semblance of control. Given the propensity of oil installations to trigger hazardous situations, the authorities should go the extra mile to pre-empt, prevent and control disasters. But, experience has shown that things are taken in a shockingly cavalier manner by the operators of such hazardous industries.
On the whole, an overhaul of the safety measures-including their installation, maintenance and monitoring-merits urgent attention by both oil PSUs and the government.
While we need a thorough probe to get to the roots of the disaster and fix responsibility, recurring incidents of this nature call for a review of the functioning of the oil majors such as ONGC and OIL vis-à-vis maintenance and monitoring of safeguards and emergency response mechanisms against such disasters. Also, the role of the private firms engaged by the oil majors raises disturbing questions and those need to be put to stringent scrutiny.
It was established how the private company outsourced by OIL was guilty of dereliction of duty in the Baghjan blowout. Another imperative is to prevent human settlements from expanding near oil installations to minimise the loss from such disasters.